there are a number of players graded around 180 to 200 ECF who have FIDE ratings which are far too low.

That's at least in part due to the different treatment of junior players. In the ECF system they are treated as new players each year, which minimises the impact of having players with 140 grades getting 190 results. Although the FIDE K=40 is intended to have a similar effect, in practice many English juniors don't play often enough in rated games to have their improvement recognised in the ratings given. There's a knock on effect on adults who play juniors with ratings below their strength. It randomises Swiss pairings as well.

With rating prizes being calculated using W-We, it is important that players ratings are an accurate reflection of their playing ability.

The problem now faced is what happens when you combine a membership structure designed to discourage FIDE rated chess with national competitions based on FIDE ratings. You can have one or the other, but not both.

If you insist on having both, there is no good solution. Telling one group of players that they will not be eligible for any rating prize at all still seems like a particularly bad one.

With rating prizes being calculated using W-We, it is important that players ratings are an accurate reflection of their playing ability.

The problem now faced is what happens when you combine a membership structure designed to discourage FIDE rated chess with national competitions based on FIDE ratings. You can have one or the other, but not both.

If you insist on having both, there is no good solution. Telling one group of players that they will not be eligible for any rating prize at all still seems like a particularly bad one.

While the membership structure can be argued as an impediment to FIDE rated chess, I fear it is not the biggest road block. The problems are around the way English chess is played. The rate of play issues, especially the first time control of 40 moves and the enjoyment of adjudications, limit the conversion of evening league chess to the FIDE structure. I don't think the amount of congress chess that is not now FIDE rated would change the picture that much (not that I have done a detailed analysis).

... The rate of play issues, especially the first time control of 40 moves and the enjoyment of adjudications, limit the conversion of evening league chess to the FIDE structure...

Are there *any* evening leagues in England which are FIDE-rated?

While adjudications may be an impediment to rating an evening league I should have thought there were other, likely more important, blockers:
- the need for either a four-hour playing session or to restrict participation to players rated under 2200 (in which case a playing session of a minimum of three hours applies);
- the need for ECF Gold membership (or payment of a Pay-to-Play fee); and
- the need for players to be FIDE-registered or else to provide their date-of-birth and accept automatic registration through the ECF (and any consequent exorbitant transfer fee to switch to another national federation).

What was and wasn't programmed into the 1990s DGTs was relevant. When Kirsan demanded that chess had to be quicker, the initial suggestion was that the move rate should be 40 moves in 90 minutes with an extra 15, with an increment from move 40 to eliminate the arbiter ability to rule on unable or not trying to win by "normal" means. When it was pointed out that FIDE's "official" clock didn't support this, the rate of ninety minutes with thirty second increments was mandated.

Long, long ago, the FIDE move rate would be 40 moves in 150 minutes. A revival of that might be all moves in 130 minutes plus 30 second increments.

If you have a finite playing time, dividing it between the players is a completely reasonable solution, so intermediate time controls aren't necessary once you move beyond the notion of the game terminating with an adjudication as to who was winning, or pausing the game for analysis as in adjournments.

Yes, somebody could write a computer programme to achieve that objective.

I thought they already had as it's the existence of tournament management software that makes possible this dubious way of awarding rating prizes in the first place. Hint, run a rating report on a copy of the existing data with all players below X reset to X.

The above assumes that the rating prize is awarded on rating performance.

It was the (W-We) form of rating prize. This has the feature that if two players make the same score against the same average opposition, the rating prize goes to the lower rated of the two. If you reset their rating to a minimum, this feature disappears.

Another approach would be to set everyone below a rating of X to X for the purposes of pairing and tournament cross tables. This would then make the ranking of lower rated players be based on alphabetic order.